Child free in the USA...where to go?

[Letsgowalking]

If you had eight days child free in America what would you do? Our children are going to a Camp in North Carolina and we are wondering how best to spend our time. DH used to work there but as over 20 years ago. I’ve never been. The plan is to spend the following fortnight touring with our kids. Where should we go during those three weeks that’s a bit different (we are definitely not a Disney type family). Thanks!

Where to start?? Alaska is breathtaking. The San Juan Islands off Seattle and stretching northwards likewise (don't waste money on whale watching trips - you'll see them from the ferries). A big Rockies road trip swinging south to Moab and Zion is stunning, with lots of hiking. Denver and Boulder are cool cities to break up the outdoorsy stuff.
New Orleans is fun - but take a road trip west into the Atchafalaya swamp is amazing. Little roadhouse restaurants where they play proper blues or zydeco.
That's just a small sample of what we did when we lived there.

I've been to America a couple of times but only to Disney!

My list of places I'd love to go in the USA are as follows:
Road trip of new England in the autumn
Boston
Chicago
Miami
New Orleans
Seattle
Vegas
New York
Santa Monica
Alaska
Hawaii

Theres probably loads more but those are the places I've always wanted to go to, I'm more of a city person than a nature person!

Oh and the Florida keys! Like Key West for example

I guess the obvious place to go with no children is Las Vegas. Depends if it is your thing or not. I would probably plump for a weeks tour round the wine regions of California!

Many US cities are great for children. Boston is my favourite. We have been there many time over the years with small children and then teens. We are going back soon just me and DH.

We did an RV trip to the Grand Canyon and then to LA and up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco with our (teen) kids which was amazing. We also did a fantastic New York/ Cape Cod, Boston and New England trip using cars and trains.

I found Vegas rather unsettling. It's a weird place, I felt all ' Lost in Translation' not sure I'd go back. DH and I love Miami South Beach ( the art deco bit) for a long weekend of sun and relaxation.Do you want to chill or explore when it's just the two of you?

Not sure any of mine would count as ' a bit different' though!!!

Child free I would want to go to New Orleans.

New Orleans is great fun. Stay in the French Quarter and drink cocktails and listen to jazz. Plus you can tour Ante-bellum plantations. The tiny voodoo museum is entertaining. The cemetary is also amazing.

Miami for the architecture but depends when you are going - it can be v.v. sauna unpleasant hot there if you are at the wrong time of year.

New York + Boston for an East Coast tour. New York is a great place to be without children - there is so much - theatre, art, great food and bars and restaurants, shopping.

If you are at all interested in history I cannot recommend Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia too highly. It is fascinating, the people staffing it know so much. If you engage with them you can have really enlightening conversations. We’re so glad we went without children because our teenagers had a strict rule that parents should never talk to strangers.
There is lots to do in that area, civil war and war of independence sites etc. Not far to Washington DC and various national parks.

I would imagine the intersection of people who love Las Vegas and Colonial Williamsburg is very small. I loath Las Vegas (and similarly Times Square in NYC).

With children, California is great, also the four corner states for National parks and outdoor activities- hiking, rafting, horse riding. Florida has a lot to offer too, we thought we were not a theme park family but loved Universal (in winter). Then there is the Kennedy Space Center, which is brilliant.

What do you like OP? Cities? Great outdoors?

I’d definitely recommend flying to Vegas and taking a round trip of red rock country - Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon (North or South), vermilion cliffs, Page/Horseshoe Bend etc. Do-able in 9 days.

Or San Francisco/Yosemite/Kings Canyon etc. Or Las Vegas/Death Valley/Yosemite if you’re travelling after early June (otherwise Sierra Nevada passes will be closed for snow).

I should say that most of Vegas is fairly horrible, but it’s a good place to do a round trip from. And everyone should experience it, even just to confirm they don’t want to go again. 😁

We have family in NC and they took us OBX/Outer Banks recently (it was where the Richard Gere chickflick "Nights In Rodanthe" was filmed) Gorgeous beaches/lighthouses/stuff to do...) Also went to the Wright Brothers Museum/display not far from there... Apart from that, Santa Monica/Venice Beach area...

South Beach too as pp said - loved it!

Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia too highly. It is fascinating, the people staffing it know so much. If you engage with them you can have really enlightening conversations.

The only point of going to Colonial williamsburg is to engage with the crafts people there. They have eg a man manning the carpentry who has been trained as on old school apprentice would have been to inlay wood and so on.

The place itself is a comedy American joke of an open air museum. The site was bought by I think Rockerfeller or some wealthy old American of that ilk. All the buildings were knocked down and rebuild as a faux old building. The only real original brick work is about two lines of brick in the old jail or something.

If you like a costumed open air museum, it's perfectly pleasant. The Inn hotel with the golf course attached is absolutely stunning but it's not somewhere I'd rush to go back to or even really recommend unless you are interested in old craft techniques.

I am interested in old crafts, luckily. And in the history of the war of independence (it was at Colonial Williamsburg that I learned that the American War of Independence was won by the French). And in the lives of the colonists and how Britain made their lives unnecessarily hard by restricting what they could and couldn’t trade in. And in the lives of the slaves. We had a really interesting conversation about the governor, and what he did after he returned to Scotland. But yes, the buildings are a bit of a pastiche, I don’t think it detracts.

I would do DC and Boston with the children - really fascinating history and museums.

If I were you, for the 2 weeks on our own I'd do a few of the National Parks - fly into Utah and then drive down through arches, canyonlands, dinosaur etc.

Or you could reverse and do the national parks with the children and dc and Boston yourselves :)

Yosemite.

I would love to walk several legs of the Appalacian trail.
Smithsonian: it's endless & too long for kids to spend days in.
Many monuments in DC.
There are beautiful North Carolina beaches & islands for just kicking back & hanging out.

What time of yr? NC is HOT in August.

... long time ago we went but if you go all the way down to FA, esp. with the kids, we thoroughly enjoyed the Space Centre there.

An out-there suggestion too is Big Bend National Park in Texas. Staggering in scale and landscape. Bordering it are the quirky cowboy towns of Davis and Marfa. You really get u see the skin of the country.
Las Vegas I would say steer clear unless you know it’s yiur bag. There really are dozens of other ways to spend time and money. Road trips, National Parks (which they do really well) and a couple
Of we’ll chosen cities. Make sure you oil Nat Park accommodation well in advance, especially honey pots like Yosemite (where you may encounter queues of traffic).

I have also stayed in Williamsburg, Virginia, too and it’s about far more than craft! (Although the wig maker is a star!). We loved William and Mary university too. Colonial Williamsburg has 80 plus old buildings and you certainly can learn about the War of Independence and I also recommend a visit to the battle sites around York Town and see where the English landed at Jamestown and built a fort. We also visited two plantation houses in Charles County.

I would therefore consider driving around Virginia - we did Williamsburg, Charlottesville (Monticello and the university are star attractions) Stanton and Roanoke plus Valle Crucis. We called in to Richmond, Virginia, to see their fantastic Art Museum with a wonderful collection of Faberge (the best outside Russia). We drove the Skyline Drive and The Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway. It was absolutely brilliant. I highly recommend this area.

You can continue South into the Great Smoky Mountains (we will do this in the future). It’s outdoorsy and if you dislike Disney, this is for you. The music would be in full swing in the summer too. These drives have their own web sites so check them out and Moons Guide is worth a look.

If you want to go North, the Skyline Drive is relatively close to Washington DC and you can reach Gettysburg and Amish County if you are interested. We also visited Philadelphia which was impressive and also had great museums on American Independence as well as first class art museums.

LV is awful and you won’t like it. You could access Utah and Arizona via Phoenix. Way too hot in summer though! Leave it until late autumn or Easter. You might even enjoy this area then!

Have fun!

NC is lovely, maybe stay in the area. Or South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky there are some fabulous places. I love the Southern States.

Brilliant suggestions. Thank you. I am going to hand them all over to DH as this is his ‘gig’ for a milestone birthday. We are v much outdoorsy and history geeks rather than Vegas type people and having lived in the Middle East for a few years we have become pretty averse to artificial cities created our of endless desert 😁. To all those that suggest New Orleans, have any of you been recently? It was originally on our ‘must do’ list but BIL went pre-Katrina and loved it but returned last year and told us that it has changed a lot and they didn’t really enjoy it. We were also thinking about Nashville as we like music and thought it might have plenty of character? Does anyone have any experience of travelling there? Thanks again, I think we may have to go back more than once to experience everything!

Nashville is supposed to be great for all kinds of music. Huge mecca.

Loads of history in New England on way up to Maine which is outdoor heaven.